


Mama, Mommy, Daddy and Me.

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Series: Avery'verse [6]
Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: Avery'verse AU, F/M, Family, Kid!Fic, future!fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4060948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never in a million years did Andy's dream life include such a crazy mixed family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently now that Avery, Katie and Danny exist in my headcanon future universe for Sam and Andy, I can't seem to build a future!fic without them. But since [Gabriella](http://kavific.tumblr.com/post/119725243266/im-working-out-my-premiere-feels-okay-thats) doesn't actually exist in the regular Avery'verse, it's technically an AU.

“Hey Mom?”

Andy looks up from her perusal of their quiet west-end neighbourhood to find her step-daughter framed against the light of the foyer. It’s late and Gabby should probably be in bed, but the way she picks at her fingers tells Andy there’s something serious on her mind.

Still, she nods to Gabby’s hands. “That’s a terrible habit.”

Gabby offers her a shaky smile, but takes the comment for the acceptance it is. “Can I, uh, talk to you?”

Fifteen years and sometimes it’s strange to think that her step-daughter wants to talk to her of all people. It’s been difficult, toeing the line between being there for Gabby and understanding that there is an element of respecting Sam and Marlo’s decisions, but Andy likes to think they’ve made it work.

(Honestly, Andy’s just kind of glad that after three kids of her own, Gabby still feels comfortable enough with her to climb up on the swing and curl up against her side like she did when they were reading The Book with No Pictures when Gabby was four and Avery still a baby.)

“What’s on your mind?” Andy asks as she wraps her arm around her step-daughter.

Gabby sucks in a breath, then lets the tension leak entirely out of her body. “I want to do an exchange.”

Andy blinks for a moment, takes her time catching up. “Okay.”

“Mama and Da don’t want me to.”

Andy bites her lip against her laughter. It had started a couple of years ago, ‘Da’, when Gabby had decided that teenagers simply didn’t call their fathers ‘Daddy’. Sam had been more than a bit devastated. Andy didn’t really get it until Avery had called her ‘Mom’ for the first time. It’s been an adjustment, dealing with two teenagers in the house.

“They tell you why?” Andy asks, her hand absently stroking through Gabby’s hair.

“You know how Da gets,” Gabby says with a roll of her eyes that isn’t quite as nonchalant as Andy thinks Gabby meant. “He just… He says ‘no’ and won’t hear anything else.”

Yeah, she knows that. Fourteen years of marriage and communication is still one of their weird hang ups. They’re better, sure, but he still tends to shut down when confronted with his kids growing up. Andy remembers the temper tantrum that had been Avery asking if she could spend both July and August at a sleepover camp in Muskoka.

She can only imagine how he feels about his firstborn going to a foreign country.

“What about your mom?”

Gabby shrugs. “She just said ‘okay’, in that quiet voice she has, you know? Like when I told her I wanted to go to Disney with you guys for March Break.”

Andy nods slowly. They’ve all tried to be careful over the last fifteen years, careful and aware that there have been times in Gabby’s life where it’s just Marlo and Gabby. It’s not that Marlo’s ever stood in Gabby’s way, not really, but the entirely inadvertent guilt trip Gabby goes through when she thinks about leaving her mother alone has caused more than it’s fair share of issues.

(It’s not that they haven’t tried. It’s not that Marlo and Gabby aren’t trying. But at this point Andy’s getting a little worried that it’s going to give them both a complex.

Just in case her fifteen-year-old step-daughter isn’t going through enough of an identity crisis.)

Andy knows she’s on strangely shaky ground. The last thing she wants to do is stand between Gabby and her parents.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I’m not sure,” Gabby admits, because between Marlo and Sam, Gabby speaks three languages.

“Spain and France?” Andy asks on a bit of a laugh, squeezing Gabby’s shoulders.

“Yeah.” And Andy can hear the little smile that tilts Gabby’s mouth, can hear how much Gabby wants to do this. “What do you think?”

Andy’s quiet for a few minutes trying to figure out what she wants to say. Sometimes being the step-mother is awkward. “I think your dad will never want to let you go. Remember Avery?”

Gabby chuckles. “Da was so mad.”

“Not mad,” Andy corrects softly, subtly. “Scared. Your dad’s lost a lot in his life.”

“It’s a western, developed country.”

“Across an ocean where he can’t just turn the sirens on and break all possible traffic laws to get to you if something goes wrong.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“You kind of are.” Andy laughs to soften the blow. “You know you always will be to your dad.”

Gabby blows out a breath, annoyed and irritated. “It’s only three months. And there’s Skype and Facetime and e-mail and-“

“Gabs.”

Gabby turns her head to bury frustrated tears in Andy’s shoulder. Yeah, Andy’s having none of that.

“Hey. Hey, no.” Andy waits for Gabby to meet her eyes again. “You know your dad’s going to come around. He always does.”

“To three months? In a foreign country.”

“Haven’t you learned?” Andy asks, kissing her forehead. “It’s all in how you sell it.”

Gabby looks dubious. Andy grins.

“Come on. Let's go gang up on your dad.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: Gabby and Avery meeting for the first time.

“Mama, she’s tiny.”

Andy’s eyes blink open, her body screaming at her to go back to sleep, to recover from, well, giving birth. The thing is, Andy definitely wants to see this.

Three-year-old Gabby is dwarfed in the cushy chair Sam had been occupying since they’d all but dropped Avery into his arms, Andy exhausted and trying to catch her breath on the bed and laughing almost hysterical as Avery had cried out. But it’s not really Gabby’s size that has Andy riveted.

It’s the way Gabby, perched carefully on Sam’s lap, cradles her new sister.

“She’s just been born,” Marlo’s saying, crouched beside the chair. “You were that small once.”

(In a different world, Andy thinks it would be really easy to resent Marlo, to the role she will now always play in Sam’s life and the torturous months she represents in her relationship with her husband. The thing is, Andy knows life doesn’t work that way and as much as Marlo stood between her and Sam for a time, she thinks that maybe Marlo had managed to have a bigger influence on her and Sam, both as people and as a couple.

And Andy had made Sam a promise when they’d found out about Gabby. She likes to think Gabby feels just as much love from her time with her father and ‘Mommy’ as much as she does when she’s with ‘Mama’.)

“Really?”

Marlo laughs and Andy can see the way her hand rises to Gabby’s arm, wrapped carefully around Avery. “Really.”

Gabby’s eyes go back to the little baby, dark and awed. “Mine baby.”

This time, it’s Sam’s laughter mixing with Marlo’s and Andy finds her eyes fluttering closed, her own chuckle floating over the silence of the maternity ward. Each one of those dark heads turns to her, Gabby’s eyes lighting up.

“Mommy, she’s small.”

“She is,” Andy agrees and thinks about waving Marlo off when she lifts Avery from Gabby’s arms. But there’s something in Marlo’s face that is easy and anticipatory.

“She’s beautiful, McNally. Congratulations.”

Andy lets out a little bit of a hysterical laugh but accepts the little bundle Marlo holds out. Gabby’s little feet follow Marlo, her chin resting on the sheets of Andy’s hospital bed. Andy smiles down at her stepdaughter, the child she’d valued when they hadn’t known what to do about her, then to her daughter, her own flesh and blood. Gabby’s sister.

“Hey,” she says to Gabby. “Come up here.”

“McNally,” Marlo starts to argue, Sam’s mouth half open to say something the same. But Andy’s having none of it. She’s just given birth, not gotten shot, and she doesn’t ache enough for this. She’ll never ache enough for this.

Gabby scrambles up, sits on her knees on the strip of bed just large enough for her. Andy shifts Avery, laughs as she tugs on Gabby’s arm until the little girl is curled against her side. It takes some manovering and more than a few concerned hisses from Sam, but Andy, who feels utterly comfortable with little Avery in one arm and Gabby tucked under the other, shifts everything around until her arm is supporting Avery under Gabby’s and Gabby’s got that look on her face like this is the most amazing thing she’s ever seen.

“Mine baby.”

“Yeah. Did Daddy tell you what we named her?”

Marlo chuckles trying so hard to look relaxed and not like she’s infringing on a moment. “Her dad may have jumped on the idea of her holding the baby before I could ask.”

“Sounds like Sam,” Andy says easily, because while there’s nothing to ‘forgive’, she’s long dealt with her Marlo-related feelings. “Gabs, this is Avery. She’s your sister.”

“Mine sister,” Gabby says on a little sigh. “Mine Avery.”

(She learns later that Marlo had pulled Sam aside before she’d climbed in the car and thanked him for letting her and Gabby be a part of this, a part of this moment and the newest addition to the Swarek Clan.

And Sam, bless him, had looked at Marlo like they hadn’t thought about anything else. “It’s not the family we’d imagined,” he’d said, “but it’s the one we’ve built. Andy and I wouldn’t have done this any other way.”)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked: Half-sibling bonding.

Gabby’s the one who notices when Avery, normally so talkative and bubby and outgoing, starts to curl in on herself. They’re three weeks into the new school year when Gabby, starting grade twelve, and Avery, just starting ninth.

It’s scheduling that keeps her from staying with her Mom and Dad, that’s meant she can see the incredible difference in her sister from the young woman she’s used to the ninth grader that hides in her room after dinner. At first, Gabby just talks it up to Avery actually needing time to herself, but when, for the third night in a row, Avery goes straight up to her bedroom after dinner, Gabby follows.

“Ave?”

“Go away.”

Because that goes far in convincing Gabby her sister’s okay. She’s never been happier that Mom refused to let the kids put locks on their doors as she pushes Avery’s door open. Avery’s face down on her bed.

“The Blue Jays are on tonight. Why aren’t you watching it with Mom?”

“They never make it anyway. Why does it matter?”

Gabby blinks but does them both the favour of closing the door behind her. “Because I’ve seen you do homework in the front of ballgames where they get obliterated and you’re actually missing a game that could get them into a wild card spot?”

“You hate baseball. Maybe I’m growing up.”

“Maybe that’s crap,” And Gabby plops down on Avery’s bed reaching out to sroke her sisters hair.

Avery’s shoulders come up to her hears but Gabby keeps at it until they relax again. “I thought high school was supposed to be awesome.”

Gabby’s hackles rise immediately. Honestly, she hadn’t thought to worry about Avery in the halls. Avery’s always been the defender of the little people, more than capable of taking care of herself. “Ave,” she says, putting a little bit of strength in her voice, a little urgency. “What happened?”

It takes a minute, but Gabby’s patient.

“They call me their little hellion,” Avery finally says quietly, turning her head Gabby’s way. “They say they can’t wait to tame me, that I’d better watch my back in the halls.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Some grade twelves,” Avery mumbles into her pillow. “I think one of them’s dating Megan?”

Gabby can picture the group, the picture they’d made on the field last week. She hadn’t thought bullying at the time, too busy racing from biology to English and hoping she could stop by her locker in the middle to drop off her twenty-pound bio textbook. God, she hopes that hadn’t been Avery.

“How long?”

Avery shrugs beneath Gabby’s palm. “Since the beginning.”

Gabby feels the blood pump in her veins, has to swallow hard. “Why not tell Mom and Dad?”

“Because I’m not a baby,” Avery says, leveling her sister with a glare. “I don’t need my cop parents stepping in.”

Gabby barks out a resigned laugh. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“You’ve been saying all summer this is your year,” Avery answers with a huff. “I’m just your little sister. Little half sister.”

Gabby recoils. They’ve never referred to each other as anything less than full siblings, even though every kid down to Danny knows that Gabby doesn’t share a mother with her younger siblings. Mom, Mama and Dad have all worked hard to make sure they see themselves as full-blooded siblings, that they defend each other like family. It stings.

“Okay, hey. First of all, we’re sisters, okay? Whether I’m sixteen or sixty, we’re sisters.”

Avery rolls her eyes, but the flush that blossoms over her cheeks gives away her pleasure and keeps Gabby from pressing the argument.

“Second, if someone’s bothering you at school, you can always come to get me. I’ll never be too cool to ignore you.”

“I can handle this.”

“I know,” Gabby replies with a shrug because even if she can, she isn’t and that’s really what irks her. “Look, we’ll go in tomorrow, okay? Together.”

(And sure enough, Avery and Gabby walk into school together the next morning, arm-in-arm. Gabby feels Avery stiffen as Dustin Carter greets them.

“You pick up a grade nine slave, Cruz?”

Gabby offers him her brightest grin, squeezing Avery’s arm tight. “Walking my sister to class. Have you met Avery?”

“Your sister?”

Gabby’s grin turns just a little feral because she is well aware that Dustin’s been aiming to make out with her since finals last year. “My sister,” she affirms, voice solid and strong. “And off limits.”

Avery hides her grin behind Gabby’s back.)


End file.
